The Buzz on the Auction Block(busters)

By

Alexandra Peers

Updated April 27, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

For decades, spring in the New York art world meant cracking open the catalogs. The glossy buying guides, with suggested bids ("only $60,000 for that Matisse sketch?"), famous names ("Dennis Hopper owned that Lichtenstein!") and purple prose ("Perhaps the finest Donald Judd shelf sculpture from the 1970s...") set the scene and ratcheted up the suspense for the blockbuster sales of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art that begin the first Tuesday in May.